The CRS is a Congressional "think tank" with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite CRS costs to the tax payer of over $100M a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made available to the public.

Individual members of Congress will release specific CRS reports if they believe it to assist them politically, but CRS archives as a whole are firewalled from public access.

This report was obtained by Wikileaks staff from CRS computers accessible only from Congressional offices.

Title: ATTEMPT TO COMMIT A FEDERAL CRIME: S. 171, A PROPOSED GENERAL STATUTE

CRS report number: 98-554

Author(s): Paul S. Wallace, Jr., American Law Division

Date: June 16, 1998

Abstract

There is no general federal statute proscribing criminal attempts; the federal criminal statutes are written in such a manner so as to include only the attempt to commit a specific substantive crime or substantive offense. As introduced, S. 171 would address this perceived problem in the current law by adding a general attempt provision to title 18 of the United States Code which would define what constitutes an attempt in all circumstances. It is also the intent of the legislation to fill in the gaps found in the current attempt statutes.